


The Die is Cast

by stereolightning (phalaenopsis)



Series: The Marauders Fics [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-01 02:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phalaenopsis/pseuds/stereolightning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Hogwarts but before Harry, James and Lily invite Remus to live with them. Their flat is full of laughter and sunlight and is exactly what he needs. For eight weeks between Halloween and Christmas, their arrangement is easy and the pranks are a happy distraction from the omnipresent darkness. But all good things must come to an end...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Halloween

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly gen fic, but there is some implied James/Lily nookie here, and some nods at other pairings, or possibilities of pairings - both tongue-in-cheek and not. This could also be read as one big prequel to my Remus/Tonks fics. Oh, and there are tiny little hints of Snape at the periphery. And just oodles of foreshadowing in general, this being a Marauders story.

"Morning, darling," Lily said in an affected upper-crust accent, blinking lasciviously at Remus as he woke up in a strange bed on a Saturday. A clean bed, a nice bed. Was this his bed? It smelled of posh soap and girly perfume. She leaned forward and planted a passionate kiss on his forehead. "Well, last night was simply mind-boggling."

"Erm," he said, uncharacteristically at a loss for words.

"Oh, yes, I shall remember _that_ for the rest of my days," she said, with a guttural noise on the last word that twisted his stomach into knots, even though she was – er – they – they _what,_ exactly?

"Lily," he groaned as the room came into focus. This was not the flat he had been renting. The window was big and bright, and someone had hung a colorful but rather bad painting of a cat and a vase of flowers on one wall. Lily sighed contentedly and arched her back. "Erm," Remus continued, "I'm not sure what... I mean... I'm sorry if I've given you the wrong... I mean, I do like you very much, as friends..."

Her dramatic affect melted away and she cackled with laughter. "Five galleons to me, James," she yelled over her shoulder. "Totally flustered. Started apologizing within ten seconds."

James appeared in the doorway, wearing striped Gryffindor-red pyjamas and a slack-jawed expression. "No, he didn't fall for it, did he?" asked James, his mouth half-full of jammy dodger. He swallowed and then clicked his tongue. "Moony, I'm disappointed in you. I told her you get a bit groggy after a full moon, but I didn't think you'd fall for _that._ "

"Cough up, Prongs," said Lily. She propped herself up on both elbows and squinted at him. "Are you eating biscuits for breakfast?"

"I might be," James said through another mouthful. Crumbs tumbled onto his front like sugary snow.

"Without me?" she asked.

Remus rubbed his eyes and remembered. He had moved in with James and Lily. They were already proving just as boisterous as James and Sirius had been at school. Well, at least James had found someone else who could keep up with him.

Lily leaned close and gave Remus an actual friendly peck on the cheek. "You are a lamb," she said. "I think that entitles you to half my winnings. Come find me later. We'll go buy ourselves some sweets and trashy pulp fiction, yeah?"

She rolled out of bed, revealing pink pyjama bottoms and a well-worn Iggy Pop t-shirt. She took the other half of James' biscuit and stuffed it in her mouth.

"God, you're horrible," said James, snickering gleefully. "Remind me why I like you, again?"

"No idea," said Lily. "I don't know why I like you, either. Sirius is much better-looking, and Remus is far nicer than you are. And I've always fancied blonds, so there's one more point for Peter."

James swatted at her, and she ducked, and he chased her from the room. Their laughter echoed off the walls. Remus sank back into the mattress and sighed. His friends' happiness was both intoxicating and exhausting. He heard them chasing each other around the flat, proclaiming in loud voices how much they disliked one another while snogging up against every stick of furniture in the place.

For a moment you could almost forget that they were outnumbered in a war against evil.

Still.

This was a much better way to recover from a full moon than a chilly, hungry morning at his dodgy old flat. Perhaps this had been a good decision after all. Golden, mid-morning light filtered through the linen curtains, illuminating the waxed floors and pretty crown mouldings of what was undoubtedly a very respectable address. The whole room glowed like a Vermeer painting. He dozed intermittently until noon, noting the shifting pattern of sunlight each time he woke.

When Remus at last stumbled out of bed and into the sitting room, he found James and Sirius cross-legged on the floor with their heads together over a pile of maps. In the kitchen, Lily stirred a cauldron of something vile that emitted noxious green gas every so often. All three of them looked profoundly engrossed.

"Morning, darling," muttered Sirius without looking up. Clearly he had been filled in on this morning's prank by one of Remus' new flatmates. Remus could tell by the upward curl of his classically beautiful lip.

Sirius at nineteen was so absurdly good-looking that even perfectly heterosexual men became weirdly discombobulated around him. Unflappable Frank Longbottom had choked on his rhubarb crumble at the last Order meeting when Sirius arrived an hour late in his new leather jacket and skin-tight jeans. Remus and James were immune, having lived with That Face for seven years. And Lily, who was seldom moved by appearances, gave Sirius no special consideration, either.

"Glad to see you're up and about," said James. "Come and have a look at this when you get a chance. New intelligence from the Prewitts."

Lily's cauldron sputtered with golden sparks. She grinned. She was in her element. She looked like a storybook witch, only much more benign. Remus had always thought witches were represented rather unflatteringly in Muggle fairy tales – always eating little girls, or locking them up in towers.

Remus made tea, fumbling from exhaustion and unfamiliarity with the location of the china, and then sat at James' expensive-looking kitchen table, inhaling the bergamot-scented steam. Hard to believe this was his life now – glamorous friends, elegant surroundings, dangerous espionage. The only really _real_ part of it was the creeping horror that prowled at the edges of everyone's thoughts, whispering things like _Voldemort killed her personally_ and _Muggle casualties estimated at six dozen_.

"What are you brewing?" croaked Remus, still hoarse from the previous night. He had gone back to his old flat to transform because he didn't quite trust the locks anywhere else.

"Stopper in Death," she said reverently. "It's an anti-coagulant. Keeps cursed wounds from becoming permanent, and slows down venoms in the bloodstream. Just published. Completely brilliant."

She held up a glossy copy of _Potioner's Weekly_ , which she had already folded and stained furiously.

"Oh," she said, her face falling. "Oh, I'm sorry, Remus. That was completely tactless of me. Cursed wounds. I wasn't thinking."

He shook his head. "You're about fifteen years too late for apologies, Lily. Don't worry about it."

She gave one of her obstinate prefect frowns. "Soon as there's a cure, I'm brewing it for you. I promise you that."

Remus thought it more likely that Lily would _actually_ shag him than there would ever be anything remotely like a cure for lycanthropy, but he didn't say as much.

...

He spent the afternoon discussing tactics with James and Sirius. At dusk, Sirius commandeered Remus' bedroom for his own festive machinations.

"Haven't you got a costume?" asked Sirius, fastening a silly red cape to the neck of his robes. His teeth had been temporarily hexed into fangs.

"This _is_ my costume," yawned Remus, smoothing down his tweed trousers and re-adjusting himself in the chair by his writing desk. "Shagged out werewolf. And I'm much scarier than you."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Put on a real costume, you melodramatic git."

"I told you, I'm staying in tonight. Somebody has to answer the door."

"Yeah, and a real fright you'll give the neighborhood sprogs in that get-up. Mild-mannered gentleman in cotton-wool blend, ooh, _terrifying_."

Remus sniggered. "You're just happy to have a proper Hallowe'en, Padfoot."

"Damn right, I am. We never had Hallowe'en at our house," said Sirius. "Not the fun sort, anyway. Hello, wench," he said as Lily passed by Remus' bedroom door.

She stopped and appraised his costume, tugging at his cheap, shiny cape. She was dressed as Sandra Dee from _Grease_ , her hair teased high. A real cigarette dangled from her lip, unlit.

"Hey there, stud," she said, in a cringe-worthy American accent.

James gamboled into the corridor wearing a vampire costume identical to Sirius'.

"Merlin's beard, it's the wonder twins again," said Remus.

"S'not," James said. "My cape's more vermilion, really. What are you supposed to be?"

"A prat," said Sirius. "Come on, Prongs, let's go meet Peter before all the good candy gets taken."

"By actual children," said Lily.

Sirius batted his impossibly long, dark eyelashes at Lily. This had no effect on her whatsoever.

"Could knock you up a de-aging potion, if you wanted," said Lily. "Make you about nine, ten for a couple of hours."

"No thanks," said James. "I don't fancy going through puberty again. Seriously, Moony, are you not coming?"

"I have an assignment, actually. From Dumbledore. I thought I'd get some work done on it tonight," said Remus, holding up the slip of parchment that had been on his desk since noon.

"I didn't know you read French, Remus," said Lily, nodding her head at the parchment.

He wobbled his hand in the air. " _Un petit peu_ ," he said. "Enough to get by."

" _Au revoir, mon loup-garou_ ," said Sirius, elegantly spinning on his heel and exiting the room. Even his cheap cape took on a peculiar grace as it sailed behind him.

Lily shot Remus an amused wink. "Hates when anyone else gets a bit of attention, doesn't he?" she said.

"Nah, he's just venting his disappointment. He really wanted it to be the four of us. We're never together anymore, except at meetings," said James. "Anyway. I'm off. Oh, if that kid from next door comes by, tell him the answer's 'frog spawn.' He'll know what I mean," said James.

James flapped out the door and thundered loudly down the stairs after Sirius.

"Are you not going out?" asked Remus.

Lily shook her head. "Minding the Floo tonight. There's that raid in Kent, you know, and I said I'd be available to help in case of... well, in case they need me."

Her face went dark.

"What's wrong?" asked Remus.

She shook her head. "Stupid of me. It's beyond my help, anyway. I just... I know someone who might be there. I hope he doesn't get himself killed, that's all."

Remus suppressed a yawn, but the sound broke her reverie.

"Anyway," she said, blinking rapidly. She managed a quiet laugh. "Have you met the boy next door? He's obsessed with riddles. James thinks it's brilliant. You know, I think he would have wanted a large family. Lots of brothers and sisters. But I suppose the four of us will have to do."

Remus stood up and tucked the parchment into the pocket of his trousers. "I think he's very happy, Sandra Dee. He's not a lonely sort of person. He always makes friends."

"Yeah. I know he is. If anybody's lonely by nature, it's you and I."

"You?"

Remus was taken aback. Lily had been well-liked, a prefect, Slughorn's favorite.

"In what way are you lonely?" he asked.

She furrowed her thin red eyebrows. They looked like marks on a graded essay. "It's never really our world, is it? They let you in, and you learn a bit of magic, but they never really want you, not all of you. They only want the pieces of you that make sense to them."

Remus shot a hand to her shoulder. "Only a fool would not want all of you."

"Likewise, babe," she said in her Sandra Dee voice, forcing herself to smile. She tapped him on the nose. "And don't you forget it."

He followed her into the sitting room and helped her fill a bowl with candy. She put on a loud glam rock record and bobbed her head to the music. They watched the procession of trick-or-treaters with genuine amusement. They would always be the responsible ones. The ones who stayed behind with the candy bowl. The prefects, now and forever.

He knew there was a spy among them. Somebody in the Order had been passing information to the Death Eaters for a few weeks. But he didn't mention it to Lily. Saying it aloud meant he might have to believe it himself.


	2. The Epic Row

Soft cries of pleasure followed by peals of laughter. Remus heard them every morning through the wall that separated his bedroom from Lily and James'. He wondered what could be so consistently funny. Then again, James thought everything was funny, and Lily usually started laughing whenever anyone else was laughing.

Sirius probably would have found it annoying – his best friend doing something fun without him. However, Remus thought it an amusing and optimistic start to each day. After a few weeks, he came to expect that crepuscular symphony of yelps. And it was dependable as the hands of his silver watch until The Epic Row.

Remus was sitting in an armchair, decoding an intercepted message written on a slip of vellum, when it happened.

"Oh, come off it," said James, shutting the door too hard. His boots tracked a few brown autumn leaves into the house, and he hexed them off.

"No, I will not come off it. You were completely – ugh!" said Lily through gritted teeth, hanging her coat on the hook by the door.

"Use your words, Evans," said James, taking off his traveling cloak.

"We are fucking married now – you can't call me that anymore! "

"I am just trying to lighten the mood!"

"Stop acting like everything's funny! Everything is _not_ funny! You were a complete troll to Petunia, and I am not saying I like whatshisname, but you sat there like a smug, upper-caste prick and laughed at him!"

"So? It _was_ funny! It's not like I called anybody a slur!"

Sparks shot from the end of her wand. Noticing this, she stood still and took a deep breath. James tried to match her energy, to calm himself, by slowly opening and closing his fists.

"I wasn't being a prick, Lily. I was just amused."

"I know you think that."

"I _do_ think that. Just – _Legilimens_ me and I'll prove it."

She laughed coolly. "No, I am not going to break into your head. I don't have to. I know you're not lying, I'm know you think you're blameless. This is exactly what I'm talking about. I put up with your complete ignorance of my entire upbringing, and your constant, myopic, pureblood assumptions – "

"Damn it, Lily, I am devoting my entire life to fighting with you against blood supremacy, and you know it! You _know_ I think it's abhorrent! Just because I don't know about, about – automobiles, or, electricity, or – or – I mean give me credit, I do ride a motorcycle – I – oh, fuck, Remus, I didn't know you were home."

Lily slammed the bedroom door shut behind her, startling the cat.

James launched himself at the sofa and landed, face-first, supine. He growled into a pillow, suppressing a tantrum. After a minute, he looked up at Remus.

"Sometimes I think she forgets who the hell she's talking to," said James.

"Who else would she be talking to?" asked Remus.

"Forget it. I'm sorry you saw that."

James scooped up the cat, which was grey and snub-nosed, and scratched it behind the ears.

"Yes, you love me, you horrible little thing," James mumbled to the cat, which purred furiously. "You are the world's ugliest cat."

"She's not half-kneazle, is she?" asked Remus.

"No. She's just a shabby, regular cat. I think Lily found her in a box in some crap neighborhood in Cokeworth. Any luck with that letter yet?"

"Mmm. Antonin Dolohov. He's on the move. That's all I've got so far."

"Oh, he's that really awful one, isn't he? The one we did surveillance on in March?"

"They're all awful."

"Yeah, I know, but I remember him in particular. Him and the Lestranges. Sadistic bastards, the lot of them." The cat leapt off him, and James amused himself by levitating sofa cushions into the air, juggling them. "God, I'll be happy when this is over."

Remus winced at the thought that came next, but he said it anyway. "Do you think it ever will be over?"

James met his eyes, earnest. "Yes, I think it will. I think it may be a long time, but no question it will. Do you really doubt that?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm in a mood."

"It's full moon. Of course you're in a mood. But look on the bright side, it'll be easier here than in that cell you were in before."

Remus put down the message and folded his hands in his lap. "James. About that. This is a very great risk, spending the night here. I'm not sure I can consent to this."

"Don't be daft. I'll lock you in the study. Prongs can come if you like. We can all come if you like. I'll owl Peter right now."

"I'm dragging Lily into it, though."

"Lily can Apparate. She's already agreed to it, and she's perfectly competent at self-defense. And offense. God, if anyone's going to take down You-Know-Who singlehandedly, it's her. She'll just look at him and kill him with her eyes like a damned basilisk."

James stopped juggling the cushions, and they dropped onto the floor in a floral-patterned heap.

"Please, Moony. Let me do one thing right today. Apparently I've bungled everything else."

Remus sighed. He gazed out the window. Fallen leaves swirled in an eddy of chilly wind, following each other in a slow spiral. "Alright," he said at last.

James smiled, satisfied. It did not escape Remus' notice that he did look the tiniest bit smug.

...

The next morning, Remus woke, human again, on the study floor. Prongs was asleep by the piano, his antlers rising and falling with each deep, slow breath. The bookshelf had been knocked on its side, and the glass shattered in the framed photos on the wall. There were long, pale claw marks on the legs of the piano.

Remus' heart shot into his throat, and his pulse beat so quickly that it was one continuous hum. He sat up and took stock of the damage.

No blood.

Alright.

_Breathe._

Remus pulled back the sliding door and found Lily crouched against the corridor wall, wearing her Iggy Pop t-shirt again. Her eyes were rimmed with red, her hair wild. She looked like she had been there for hours, and indeed she had amassed a row of half-finished coffee cups along the opposite wall. She grabbed his hand and pulled him into a sitting position on the floor, which wasn't difficult, because he was too sore to stand straight, anyway. She threw her arms around him and buried her face in his hair.

"I had no idea," she said, shaking, breathing into his ear. She swallowed hard. "I knew it was bad. But I didn't know it was _that_ bad, Remus. Oh, _god._ " She shuddered.

The silence lasted a long time. Maybe twenty minutes.

"You heard the wolf," he said at last. His voice was raw, low, soft.

"No," she said, pulling back a few inches. Her eyes went huge and round as bludgers, and her expression hit him in the stomach just as hard. "Well, yes, I did, but I don't care about that. Remus, I heard _you_. When it started. You just screamed and screamed for – for ages."

She grabbed both of his hands. He leaned back against the wall and stared at the chandelier on the ceiling. Prisms of light fanned out from it, frozen in orbit.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Don't be sorry," she said, suddenly ferocious. "I'm the one who's sorry. I never realized. James never said."

"He's used to it. It's not that bad, Lily."

She sat up and cast a deeply reproving look at him. James was right about that gaze; there really was something unnerving about those brilliant green eyes when she fixed them on you like that.

"Alright, that's less than true," he said. "What I should have said was, it doesn't matter how bad it is, because this is how it _is_. There is nothing to be done about it."

She squeezed his hands tightly, her wedding ring pressing into his palm. For a few minutes they just sat there, looking at each other, she taking in the full picture of his condition and he marveling that she still wanted to touch him at all. He remembered almost nothing from the previous night, per usual, except a few thin impressions – heavy books clattering to the floor. Paws slamming against a door, over and over. This door.

_Oh._

"I tried to get out," said Remus. "Didn't I. I knew you were here and I tried to get out."

He closed his eyes. He knew it was true. Her silence confirmed it.

He could picture it – the wolf throwing its heavy body at the door, sensing there was an innocent person within easy reach. Prongs keeping the wolf in check, barring the door with his sharp hoofs and antlers. Lily, unable to stand by, unnerved by the sounds of huge, dangerous animals in the flat, creeping into the hallway and biting her nails all night, wondering if her husband had been bitten or maimed. James, transformed, unable to speak to her, to let her know what was happening.

Remus knew he should look at her, look at the effect on her, and feel the guilt in its entirety. He needed to feel it so that he could muster the energy to do what he should have done weeks ago, which was to go back to his one-room flat and live out the rest of his days alone. It had been pleasant, living with friends again – deliriously nice, actually – but he had to be serious, he had to be realistic. He wasn't a child and he didn't need looking after. He could only be a danger to anyone he lived with. He must never do this again.

When he finally opened his eyes, he met hers, which leaked tears onto her freckled cheeks. She didn't wipe them away.

"I misjudged," Remus said. "I should never have tried this."

Then she was holding him in a vice-like embrace, ferocious and trembling. "We'll figure something out," she said. "There must be a potion or a spell. Something to reduce the pain, at least."

He sighed. "Lily, my parents tried everything. It's a curse. There is nothing for it."

He felt the floorboards bowing slightly and looked up to see James curling himself around Lily's other side. James wore a tired, conciliatory, _husband-like_ look that Remus had never seen before. Lily reached over and took off his lopsided glasses. She rubbed them clean on the hem of her shirt and then placed them carefully back on his nose.

"M'sorry," Lily said.

"So am I," said James, his voice almost a whisper. "Still an arrogant toerag sometimes, you know."

She shook her head and kissed his cheek.

Remus felt like he was was trespassing. This was vastly more intimate than overhearing them in bed together. He cleared his throat, which hurt. "I'll just pack my things. And then I'll be off," he said.

"What are you talking about?" asked Lily.

Remus frowned. "This happens every month. I can't do this to you. I can't ruin your lives like this."

"Come off it," said Lily. "You didn't ruin our lives. Look, you ended the row. You're brilliant."

Someone rapped tentatively on the door. James got up to answer it. Lily remained on the floor with Remus, staring at him, still gripping his hand.

"So sorry," said Peter's voice from the hall. "I couldn't get away. So, so sorry James. Terribly sorry."

Lily sighed and started smoothing down her hair and clothes. "Come on, let's get you into bed," she said. "And no more talk of running away. You're staying put, end of story."

He raised a weary eyebrow at her. "Alright. But put me in my own bed this time. No more of your practical jokes."

She smiled impishly. "Oh, no. I wouldn't dare," she said.

Peter waved to them from the hall as they passed. His mouth was half-full of raspberry muffin.

By the next day, the morning chorus of moans and giggles was back again.


	3. It's Not a Party

December arrived on the heels of an unusually warm November.

"It's not a party," Lily said, waving her wand at the mantel so that twinkling garlands appeared and draped themselves above the fire.

"It is, though," said Peter, helping himself to yet another sugar-topped, reindeer-shaped biscuit. "It is a party."

"No, it would be completely inappropriate to have a Christmas party given everything that's happening. This isn't a party. It's just a ..." Lily trailed off, now firing tinsel at the already garish tree.

"A fête, a spree, a gathering – " interjected James, who could be counted on to come up with a justification for nearly anything, if it pleased him. Honestly, he could have been a barrister, Remus thought.

"A completely non-holiday-related event at which there may or may not be canapes and beverages," said Remus.

"So it's a party," said Peter.

"Wormtail, what you lack in subtlety, you make up for in directness," said James.

Peter looked offended, his watery eyes narrowed. James sniggered and clapped him on the back.

"How's your Mum? We never see you since she fell ill. I hope she's better," said James.

"Dragon dropsy. She's not well, I'm afraid," said Peter. "She needs my help very much, but I don't mind."

Lily turned and asked, "Isn't there something we can do? A potion, a charm?"

"A gift-wrapped basket of biscuits – " said James.

"James, stop giving away the biscuits. I can't keep multiplying them infinitely. Gamp's Law," said Lily.

James ran his hand through his hair. "I've never really liked laws. Or rules, or regulations – "

"Or shutting your mouth, or doing the dishes – "

"Yes, yes, I'm terribly immature. This is why she calls me Potter Pan behind my back," said James.

Remus held back a snort, while Peter looked confused.

"You know, Peter Pan?" said Remus. "Captain Hook? The lost boys? I suppose that's us, the lost boys. Didn't you read it as a child?"

Peter shook his head.

"Ah, well. It's about a boy who never grows up, and he flies around, fighting pirates and having adventures. And he sort of adopts other boys," said Remus. James _had_ grown up, though. Remus had seen it, that morning after the wolf sliced up the piano.

"Yes, you're all the lost boys. And Lily is Wendy," said James.

Lily spun around to face her husband and frowned. "I am _not_ Wendy. Wendy doesn't get to do anything fun. She just mends socks for all the lost boys."

"But Peter loves Wendy," said James.

"Yes, but she goes home and goes totally Muggle, and he stays in Never-Never Land. And in case you haven't noticed, I've got a sizable investment in Never-Never Land," said Lily, waggling her ring finger so that the huge diamond on it caught the light. "Even if Never-Never Land is rather full of dark wizards at the moment."

"Well, you're not Tinker Bell. Tinker Bell _dies_. And you're not Tootles," said James.

"No, I think Peter is Tootles," said Lily.

They both snorted. Peter looked even more confused. Remus only just refrained from rolling his eyes.

"Tootles is lovely, Peter. He was Wendy's favorite. You really should read the book sometime. It's a classic," said Lily. "Although I think J. M. Barrie may have been a bit of a... well, anyway, it's a classic."

"Got it. Tiger Lily," said James, snapping his fingers. "Obvious, when you think about it."

Lily shook her head good-naturedly and started enchanting golden bells and mistletoe to hang from the ceiling. James shook the open jar of fairies he had been holding. The fairies scowled and flew away, eventually settling in the branches of the tree.

"Anyway, it's not a party," she said. "Oh, Peter, would you mind helping with the pudding?"

"Not at all," said Peter. "I'm your servant." He gave a little mock bow.

"How did I end up with such charming friends?" asked Lily.

The room twinkled with glitter and light.

Remus wondered what part he was supposed to be playing in this story. The lost boy who was chased by wolves?

...

As the flat filled with guests of the Potters, Remus moved fluidly from one circle of conversing wizards to another, catching up with old school friends, Order members, and miscellaneous black-sheep cousins of Sirius', who were almost all as good-looking as he was. Hardly anybody here knew he was a werewolf, and those that did had sworn a million times over that they did not care. Tonight, he believed them. The music was loud, and the drinks were strong. Escapism at its finest.

"Be a dear and refill this for me," said Alice Longbottom, proffering an empty goblet to Remus, who stood by the punchbowl, scooping chunks of pineapple into his glass. "Oh, and get some of that fruit in there as well. The fruit always soaks up the liquor, doesn't it."

Alice grinned coolly, her blue eyes flashing. Remus was reminded fleetingly of Faye Dunaway in _Bonnie and Clyde_.

"There you are, husband," she said, grabbing Frank by the front of his robes as he careened into her, unsteady on his feet. "I'd _really_ like to drink this punch."

Frank nodded, accepted the goblet from her, and knocked it back in one.

"Remus, do you mind refilling this again?" she asked in a dangerously sweet voice.

"Dare I ask?" said Remus, taking the empty goblet with one hand.

"S'my fault," said Frank. "That she can't drink. So I'm drinking for her. Unfortunately, Alice drinks quite a lot at parties."

Remus looked from one to the other. They were smiling at each other, sharing a private joke.

"Darling, I think I may vomit again," she said. "Come to the loo and hold back my hair for me?"

"Al, if you keep refilling this goblet, I'll be the one vomiting," said Frank.

"Together, then," she said, towing him by the robes again.

They melted into the crowd, obscured by festive dress robes and fair-isle sweaters. Remus saw Dumbledore standing by the tree, talking to Alastor, looking amused. Dumbledore had selected particularly flashy purple robes for the occasion. Half of Alastor's face was still in bandages.

Remus wandered onto the wide balcony, punch in hand, feeling the warm burn of firewhiskey mixed with pineapple and Merlin-knew-what in the back of his throat. Lily made punch the way she made potions – with bizarre last-minute additions, chosen out of mad, improvisational instinct.

"Hello, Moony," said Sirius, tossing his hair out of his eyes. "Nice to see you enjoying the party."

"It's not a party," said Remus.

The early December chill bit Remus' cheeks. The breath of the crowd fogged the air. A striking, elegant witch called above the heads of the throng in a clear voice.

"Come down right now," she said, enunciating every syllable.

"No!" called a voice from the roof.

Remus looked up. A slight, intense-looking girl with lavender hair stood on the roof, arms crossed, her face contorted into a deep pout. Her pink boots balanced precariously on the icy shingles.

"Nymphadora, you get down here right now, or so help me – " said the witch. Her words could almost have been a hex; the air seemed to crackle around her.

Sirius sipped his firewhiskey, looking in Remus' opinion a little too blasé, given that a small child might splat onto the ice at any moment.

"What's going on?" asked Remus.

"Ah, she's upset about Father Christmas. Her Mum told her it's just a Muggle fairy tale. But her Dad said he's real. Bit of a contentious subject for a six-year-old."

"No, I will not come down!" shouted the girl again.

Remus reached for his wand. "Hadn't somebody better – "

Remus was knocked aside as James pushed past him and bounded up to the girl's mother to confer with her. The witch waved her hand agitatedly in the air, as if batting away a fly, and nodded her consent. In one fluid motion, James _Summoned_ his broomstick, leapt astride it, and rose into the air. The whole thing couldn't have taken more than six or seven seconds. He must really miss Quidditch, Remus thought. James half-somersaulted and stood up on his broom, putting a hand on each hip. The night air blew through his hair, making it stick up especially high at the back.

"Hallo, Dora," said James. "Want a ride on a Nimbus?"

"Told you, he loves kids," said Lily, appearing at Remus' other side. "Probably because he still is one."

She raised her glass at her husband in a mock toast as he flew past, with the little girl sitting at the front of the broom, screaming with laughter.

Potter Pan indeed.

Remus caught a whiff of peppermint. "Are you drinking pepper-up potion? That's festive."

"Just peppermint tea. I have that stomach thing that's been going around," she said.

"Not dragon dropsy, I hope."

"No, I haven't got the tell-tale boils on my arse," she said. "Met any nice witches yet?"

"Only you, Mrs. Potter."

"Hmm. You're a little pissed, aren't you?" she asked, grinning and re-warming her tea with a nonverbal charm.

"I might be. Infinitesimally," he said.

"Oh, good. You're fun when you're soused," she said. "Your natural accent comes out."

"I do not have an accent."

"Yes, you do. Just the tiniest bit."

A catchy pop song started up on the stereo. Lily brightened and spun around. A few feet away, Sirius pricked up his ears, just like Padfoot. He found Lily's hand and took it.

" _This_ fucking song," she said, opening her arms as if the music were falling across her body in a shower of warm, pleasurable rain.

"This fucking _song_ ," agreed Sirius, already tossing his hair to the beat.

The two of them half-walked, half-danced into the sitting room, where Dumbledore was already cutting a rug by the tree. Lily was not a skillful dancer – she had energy, not grace – but Sirius more than made up for it, twirling her, tossing her, catching her. Remus watched them for a moment, until they veered left and were obscured by Hagrid's broad back.

For a few minutes, Remus stood alone, sipping his drink. Then Peter invited him to join the boisterous game of gobstones that had broken out in the study, and Remus followed. People had taken bets, even though gobstones wasn't normally a betting game. Some poor wizard had already bet his shoes and lost them. Remus, having very little to bet in the first place, folded mid-way through the game. Frank sat at the piano and played odd renditions of disco hits as the tension mounted.

In the end, Peter won.


	4. Loss of Hope

Remus saw his flatmates only rarely in the week following the not-party. They were forbidden from discussing the specifics of their current mission, but whatever it was, it took up almost all of their time. On one or two nights, they didn't come back until well past twilight. When Remus did see them, they looked tired, and occasionally bloody or covered in ash. James came home with a broken tibia and spent an afternoon on the sofa, sipping Skele-Gro and distracting himself by polishing his broomstick. Lily took some sort of hex to the face, and she lost a chunk of hair on the left side. She ended up cutting the rest shorter in frustration, so that it came just to her shoulders.

On one especially cold evening, Lily and James spent several hours sitting on the balcony, talking in hushed tones, watching the first snow fall lightly onto the parked cars below. James was wearing that husband-like expression again, and Lily looked solemn. Later, they let slip that they had actually seen Voldemort, and that they had narrowly escaped with their lives.

However, injury and terror did not prevent the Potters from amusing themselves around the house in little ways. Lily enchanted the bathroom mirror so that anyone who looked at it saw themselves reflected back with the addition of a huge walrus mustache. James started a standing game of Scrabble on the kitchen table, which all three of them played whenever they had a spare moment. Remus spent a pleasant couple of minutes wondering whether it would be more advantageous to put down "troll" or "trollop."

Meanwhile, his own work for the Order had him performing surveillance in the far north, drawing maps with his findings, and decoding more intercepted messages. His years of boyhood marauding served him well in this regard.

He became accustomed to unfamiliar owls flying in and out of the kitchen window – Alastor never used the same one twice – so at first Remus did not recognize the elderly, white-faced barn owl that arrived in the second week of December. Remus fished an owl treat out of the tin by the stove and untied the letter from the owl's foot. He turned over the eggshell-colored envelope, and was surprised to see the letters L.L. on the return address. Lyall Lupin. His father. They had not spoken in almost three months. Not because of any ill feeling, but because there was so much that Remus could not tell his parents about, and because he didn't want to burden them with even more than they had already endured. Fourteen years living with a monster for a son was surely enough. They had only just been able to stop moving every few months and to put down permanent roots after he came of age and began living on his own.

The letter was short, and to the point. This was unlike Lyall, who had an academic's way of adding extra words and rambling dependent clauses to his sentences. Instead, the message barely took up half the page.

The news stopped his breath as he read.

Remus' mother was dead.

...

"You can't go alone. We'll come with you," said James.

"It's fine, James. Please don't abandon whatever it is you're doing. That's much more important. You know it is," said Remus.

All three of them sat on the edge of the bed in Remus' room. Lily's feet did not reach the floor. Remus rubbed the flannel blanket between his thumb and forefinger absent-mindedly. Lily's cat sat on his writing desk, watching them with large yellow eyes and flicking her tail from side to side, like the pendulum of a grandfather clock.

"I'll do it. I can manage by myself for an afternoon," said Lily.

"No," said James, looking at his wife, voice suddenly firm, "out of the question. Take Peter. He knows the address."

"Alright, I'll take Peter," she said. It was strange to hear her agree so easily to a direct order, without joking or arguing. She and James were speaking like soldiers, with clipped sentences stripped of niceties.

"Please, I don't need – " Remus began, but his voice broke on the last word, betraying him.

"Yes, you do. Don't be ridiculous," said James. "Take it from someone who has already lost both parents. You do not want to be there alone."

Remus felt a stab of guilt behind his ribs; he had quite forgotten that he was in the presence of an orphan. He shrugged his consent. Then another awful realization occurred to him. "I don't have any black clothes. Except school robes," he said.

"You can borrow something of James'. People will probably be in Muggle clothes, won't they, if there are friends of your Mum there. James, you still have that suit, don't you, from that wedding?" asked Lily.

"I do," said James. He cast a _Summoning_ charm, and a linen garment bag zoomed into the room. He caught it with his swift, Quidditch player's reflexes.

"But you're taller than me," said Remus.

"Lucky for you, we can all do magic here," said Lily. "Stand up. We'll sort you out."

Remus felt like a child, like an eleven-year-old getting fitted for Hogwarts robes at Madam Malkin's, as he lifted his arms and slid the jacket over his shoulders and his friends fiddled with the hems and cuffs. Remus could feel from the looseness in the suit that James was taller, and broader through the shoulders, but not terribly much so.

"You're not bad at that stitching charm, are you?" Lily said, with a distant twinkle of humor in her green eyes.

"Excuse me, sewing is perfectly manly," said James quietly, tapping his wand on Remus' wrist. "Muggle surgeons sew."

Lily's eyebrows flicked up in surprise. "Yes, they do," she said.

Remus had an odd thought, which was that Lily and James would be very nice parents someday. Maybe not such an odd thought, actually.

A few minutes later, Lily threw a fistful of glittering powder into the fireplace and spoke the name of her destination. She blew a kiss goodbye at James as the green flames carried her away.

…

James and Remus _Apparated_ to the edge of the forest near the cottage of Lyall and Hope Lupin. James gripped Remus' arm fraternally before letting go and walking up the path with him. Lumpy drifts of snow crouched in wet pockets along the property, and the garden had gone dark and stiff with dying rosebushes and black, dilapidated tomatoes. Hope had always been the one who tended the plants. Now she was gone.

Remus had not wept, exactly, but he had let loose a few hot tears during the private moment when Lily and James left his bedroom so he could put on the borrowed trousers. (He would only ever have a handful of truly uncontrolled weeping fits in his life – once on November first, 1981, once over Sirius, and twice – out of sheer, overwhelming joy – when Teddy was born. But all that was still ahead of him.)

The cottage was already full of mourners – Muggle neighbors, mostly, although Remus could pick out the few wizards in attendance by their peculiar dress. Lyall looked small and seemed unable to speak directly about his late wife or her passing. Instead, he talked about his recent research for the four-volume treatise he was writing about boggarts. They had very much loved one another, Remus' parents.

They buried Hope that afternoon in the churchyard of the Muggle hamlet at the bottom of the hill. A priest gave the traditional rites. A blonde girl, a neighbor, played a solo on her violin. Remus said a few words that he barely remembered later, being careful not to mention any details of the wizarding world, or the war, or the thing he really wanted to say, which was that he felt so grateful and yet so guilty for his mother's sacrifice. For the way she had refused to abandon him, even when he must have been so different from the child she surely imagined raising as a young mother – a wizard, and a werewolf to boot. There seemed no way to truly thank her for that, except perhaps to go on living.

But the loss felt like a sharp, hot sword cleaving apart his insides. Remus was more than acquainted with physical pain, but this was new, and what surprised him most about it was that this pain – this _emotional_ pain – felt quite as real and raw and agonizing as any curse or corporeal injury. At the same time, he heard her voice in his head, quite clearly, speaking the soft, reassuring words she had always said to him after transformations, and other words besides – words she had never said in life. She lived on, in him, in his head, in his body.

He understood now some of the clichés and superstitions about death, which no longer felt like clichés or superstitions, but simply facts. This is how people become mystics or madmen, he thought. Bearing this feeling that the dead lived in you, around you, in some supernatural way that defied explanation, even magical explanation, because this wasn't about ghosts or inferi, this was about something beyond that.

James walked with Remus back to the house, his broad shoulders hunched forward slightly against the cold. He wore a black overcoat that contrasted with his pale, long-nosed face, giving him the look of some young, Romantic poet - Percy Bysshe Shelley, maybe. But with square glasses.

"Yeah, it changes you, the death of somebody you love," said James. "It's like this essential piece of knowledge about what it is to be human, and you're missing that knowledge until this happens to you. It's impossible to explain to anybody who hasn't gone through it. And I'm sorry that you have to go through it, Moony. I really am."

James took a deep breath of forest air, and Remus suppressed a smile, thinking of Prongs the stag, and how much he would have enjoyed bounding through the woods, had this been a happier day.

"When my parents died," continued James, "I thought I would happily give that knowledge back. I would have loved to be an innocent, ignorant prat again. Go back to Eden, give back the apple. But you don't get to give it back. And, much as I didn't want it, much as I resented it at first, it made me a complete human being, to have known loss. Actually – I don't think Lily would have married me if my parents hadn't died. I don't think I would have asked, and I don't think I would have been as, well, housebroken or whatever I am now. I mean it hurt, it felt absolutely, wretchedly awful to lose them, but in some ways, I'm better for it."

He sighed.

"Anyway. Enough of me. How are you? What can I do?"

Remus shook his head. "You're doing it already. This."

James nodded.

Gratitude again, Remus thought. Unpayable debts. To James and Hope and Lyall and Lily and everybody.

They reached the cottage, and re-joined the other mourners, who were perched on every available chair and sofa and windowsill, talking in low voices and picking limply at the spread of cold food on the kitchen table. A long while later, as the winter sun set over the monochrome landscape, James ducked outside to talk to Sirius using his two-way mirror.

The guests dwindled to just a dozen. Remus ambled into the corridor outside his former bedroom, wondering if there might be anything useful to the Order in there. The blonde who had played the violin at the service leaned against the wall, fiddling with her fingers in a vaguely nervous sort of way.

Remus was not sure how it happened, but a few minutes later, he was kissing her on the bed.

He had thought for many years that he would never, _could_ never sleep with anyone, could never be involved with anyone romantically because of his lycanthropy, but then her fingers were in his hair, and unfastening the buttons and zippers of his borrowed suit, and then he was sliding her black dress up around her hips as she whispered, "just once, I'm not looking for a boyfriend..."

For several hours afterward, Remus felt like a real, complete human being, and not like a werewolf at all.


	5. That Charming Expression About Ovens

Remus' eyes watered. Not from sadness, although he still grieved his mother keenly, and now felt a fragile new awe about life in general that had been brought on by making love to the girl at the funeral. But at present, these tears were from cutting onions. A charm could dice them easily, but he had learned this recipe from his mother, and he was doing things her way, the Muggle way. So his eyes watered, and he periodically threw an arm over each eye to wipe them on his shirt. He peeled the carrots next, shearing off dirty orange ribbons into the sink. Then he did a chiffonade on the parsley, and his knife drummed softly on the cutting board – tat tat tat.

A wolf cooking shepherd's pie. There was a joke in that somewhere.

The weight of unpayable emotional and material debts had niggled at him, and he had needed to begin a down payment on them. It was a Sisyphean task, doing for the Potters what they had done for him. However, making dinner was something he could do, and something Lily and James actually needed. In truth, James was an alright cook, but he tended to make something dramatic once in a while – saag paneer, or stuffed quail – and then abandon the kitchen altogether for weeks, falling back on beans on toast for dinner and biscuits for breakfast. Lily, on the other hand, ate almost nothing but porridge, which seemed a bit unbalanced, too. But then again, they were nineteen, and they had other things on their minds. So Remus could do this for them. He could make them a proper dinner. He had an idea that he might even make a regular event of it.

Nearby, Lily stood over the kitchen table and twiddled her fingers at her Scrabble tiles, making up her mind about what word to play. Remus had seen her letters and guessed she would probably put down either "charm" or "march." Next to the board, spare tiles spelled out anagrams of their names. Lily Potter: _Piety Troll_. Remus Lupin: _Ursine Lump_. Nobody had found a really funny one for James yet, but it would probably involve the word _pest_.

As Remus cooked, the mingled fragrances of cinnamon, onion, and herbs filled the flat. Lily played her turn, sipped from her mug of peppermint tea, and then said, sniffing the air, "Smells like Christmas."

"One week away," said Remus, tapping the spatula on the saucepan.

Christmas was imminent. The ceiling still boasted mistletoe and be-ribboned bells from the not-party, and the fairies continued to spend most of their time in the tree, although a few of them had grown bored and taken to taunting the cat. James was out with Peter. Sirius was abroad.

A plume of green flame popped into being in the fireplace.

"Alright if I come and have a look at that hex now?" asked Alice Longbottom's cool voice from the flames.

"Hi! Yes!" said Lily, brightening. Remus wondered if Lily was happy to see her because Lily spent so much time around men. Surely she grew tired of Marauder antics from time to time?

Alice appeared a moment later, her Auror robes swirling around her. Alice was short, and deceptively sweet-faced, with an almost schoolgirlish bob haircut, but she had notably good posture, and she was nothing short of vicious when engaged in battle. She was just a tiny bit scary.

"Hullo," she said, wiping her small, pointed boots on the mat by the fireplace. "Oh, it smells lovely in here."

"Remus is making dinner," said Lily, grinning.

"God, that smells just – divine. Aurors don't cook, you know. We live on kebabs and coffee," said Alice. "Never marry an Auror if you expect a decent meal ever again. Can I borrow him sometime?" She jerked her head at Remus.

"Sorry. All mine. You'll have to go and covet somebody else's Remus," said Lily, winking at him.

Alice lit her wand non-verbally and took Lily's chin in her hand. Lily tilted her head obligingly as Alice looked her over, chewing her lip in concentration.

"You said it was worse before?" asked Alice, frowning.

"Yeah. Swelling's almost gone. But it's still purple. And it doesn't feel right. It feels like a curse, not a bruise," said Lily.

"Oh, I have no doubt that it's a curse. Somebody on their side is quite the creative little curse-writer. I've seen several of these novel injuries in the last couple of months. Gashes that never stop bleeding, blisters that never stop weeping. Dark, dark stuff. You didn't happen to see who it was, did you?" asked Alice.

Lily shook her head, but Remus detected a hint of hesitation, of apprehension, in the way she moved.

Alice touched the purple mark gingerly with her finger. Lily did not wince. "Any side effects? Headaches, nightmares?"

"I think it's mostly cosmetic," said Lily. "Although I haven't been eating well since. And I've felt a little light-headed. But, I don't know, I think it's all in my head. Actually... I... you know what, I did think I saw who it was. But it was dark. You know how you see things sometimes, in a tense situation. But for a moment I thought it was someone I knew from school. I don't think he recognized me, though."

Alice nodded. "Yeah. First time I saw someone from school wearing Death Eater robes, I nearly lost it as well. I cast a feather-growing hex instead of _Petrificus totalus_. She looked like a huge, evil chicken afterward. Worked well enough in the moment, actually. But you haven't been eating well since?"

"Do you think it's related?"

"Like I said, somebody's been making up new curses. Who knows what they do in the long term. It could be related," said Alice, shrugging.

But that wasn't right, thought Remus. Lily had been sick well before she was hexed. She had been ill since the not-party. She had been drinking peppermint tea for weeks.

"Alright, sorry if this twinges a bit," said Alice, tapping her wand on the top of Lily's head. Remus recognized the wand movement from his many, many post-moon examinations at the hands of Madam Pomfrey – a diagnostic spell. The air fizzed and popped around Lily, who giggled.

"Tickles," she said, shaking her short red hair with an involuntary shiver.

Alice tapped her wand again, and the fizzing stopped. She went still. Her eyes darted to Remus, and then back to Lily. Then she spoke very softly, enunciating carefully, her blue eyes suddenly soft and full of meaning.

"We should talk in private," she said.

Lily's face was still stretched into a smile, which faltered.

It was only then that Remus noticed the way both women were glowing. And it had nothing to do with the reflected light of stray fairies skittering around the room.

…

Half an hour later, Alice had gone, and Lily sat across from Remus at the kitchen table, holding her head in her hands. He wondered if she realized she had spelled out the word _bollocks_ with Scrabble tiles.

"It's not that I'm not happy," said Lily. "I am, I think. But this is the _worst_ possible timing."

Remus cast a re-warming spell at her tea and pushed it toward her. "Is this what you want?" he asked.

She lifted her head and met his eyes. There was that disarming green again. "Yes. It's earlier than I would have chosen. It's not ideal. But yes, this is what I want."

"Can I offer you congratulations, then?" he asked.

"Yeah. You can," she said. "You're sweet."

"Congratulations. Profuse ones."

Her eyes unfocused. Snow was falling fast and thick outside the window.

"My sister Petunia's having a baby as well. She's going to think I did this to upstage her," she said.

"Oh, surely not," he said.

She shook her head gravely. "You don't know her like I do. And I really – I mean, let's be honest here, it's no picnic to be Muggleborn, or even half-blood, in this world we live in, but she had to stand there on that platform and watch me ride away to Hogwarts without her. She knows full well that magic is real and that she can't do it. She's not even like other Muggles, because she knows we exist. And she certainly isn't welcome among most of our lot. I've made an exception of her, and she hates it. I've made her into somebody like me, somebody who doesn't really belong anywhere."

Remus took her hand. "You do belong here, Lily. Of course you do. Look at you. You were the best potioneer in our entire year. You are fighting to save the wizarding world."

Her eyes sparkled with tears. "It doesn't matter," she said. "I must be neck deep in hormones already. I can't believe I didn't notice before. I suppose I thought that it was just the war. That everyone felt out of sorts."

"I think everyone does."

"Do you? No, I'm sorry, don't answer that. Of course you are, with your mother. I'm sorry, Remus."

He gave her a slow smile. "You are such a Mum. You'll be great."

"I'm not, am I?" she sniffed.

At this, he laughed outright. "You adopted the world's ugliest cat. Not to mention four wayward young men. You were the only effectual prefect in our year."

"Yeah, you were crap, Remus. I think you gave a sum total of two detentions in all three years," she said.

"I know it. But this is what I'm saying. You'll be a great Mum. And James – well, we joke about it, but he isn't really such a baby. He'll be great, too."

"He'll be _ecstatic_. He'll keep us all awake tonight coming up with names," she said.

"Aloysius. Clytemnestra."

"Aristophanes. Theodora."

"Oh, I don't mind Theodora so much. You could call her Ted if she's a tomboy."

She punched him limply in the arm. The smell of cooking pie grew richer and deeper on the air. He stood up to check the oven.

"It's your fault. This happened the night you moved in. James was just soooooo happy to have his friend living with him again," she said. "Honestly, this _is_ like Gryffindor tower all over again. Except more debauched."

Grinning, Remus opened the oven, which exhaled intoxicating, savory odors into the kitchen. For a moment, he lost himself completely in feeling warm and comfortable and happy for Lily. Here at last was a bright spot that they all sorely needed. A baby. A decent supper. Christmas.

And then he recoiled in horror, though he stopped this emotion from registering on his face. This was a trick he would come to rely on in later years.

 _The whole time._ She had been pregnant the whole time. She had been pregnant and _living with a werewolf_ for weeks. He kicked himself. He more than kicked himself; he berated himself, he lambasted himself for agreeing to this, for endangering more lives than he knew were at stake. And now that he knew she was, there was absolutely no chance that he could keep living with her.

At that moment, James appeared in the fireplace, spinning athletically, one hand flattening his wild black hair.

"Is someone actually _using_ the oven?" he asked brightly, his hazel eyes round with delight and expectation.


	6. Flight

Before James could wipe his boots on the mat by the fireplace, there came a loud, cheerful knock at the door. Remus, knowing that Lily would want a moment alone with her husband, answered.

Then the carolers were upon them. There were at least a dozen, wearing fur-trimmed hats and reindeer antlers and sweaters of a type that Remus would later associate with Molly Weasley. They crammed into the corridor, singing boisterously, and a little drunkenly. James made a move toward the door, but Lily grabbed him by the front of his robes, her face earnest, almost pleading.

Remus could not hear Lily's words over the jolly verses of "Good King Wenceslas," but out of the corner of his eye, he saw James's expression – first shocked, then delighted, then terrified, then some combination of all three that could probably be labelled "happily gobsmacked." James took her face in his hands and pressed his forehead against hers, muttering something that made her giggle.

She mouthed the words "Are you sure?"

James nodded enthusiastically and lifted her high into the air, as if she were the Quidditch cup. He made a move to set her down, but she stayed there, floating, her socked feet twelve inches off the floor. Flying. It was fortunate that the carolers were so intent upon their singing, and that Remus blocked the view, or the singers would have had to spend the evening getting their memories modified.

It took a full five minutes before Lily's toes touched down. James did not seem surprised at all by this sudden outburst of highly unusual magic. Instead, he stood in the middle of the room, grinning up at her, while the cat toyed with a loose thread in the hem of her robe.

After a final round of "Silent Night," Remus thanked the carolers and waved goodbye. He shut the door with a soft click.

"It was Sandra Dee, wasn't it," said James.

"It might have been," said Lily. "Somewhere around then. Sandra Dee was very fond of that vampire."

"Yeah, she was. Well, she always liked a bad boy type, didn't she," said James.

"Yes, we have that in common, she and I," said Lily.

He kissed her face and laughed in a euphoric, half-mad sort of way. " _Merlin_ , Lil. Worst possible timing. But we'll manage."

"Think so?"

"Yes. We will. My parents were almost sixty when I was born. Guess I'm making up for that. Hey, you haven't flown in forever."

"I told you, I have to be in the right mood."

"Fairy dust. Happy thoughts."

"Something like that."

"Can we eat? I'm starving. And you – you need to eat," he said, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"Oh, don't pick me up again, or I'll never come down," she said.

Too late. This time, it took ten minutes for her to land again.

…

Lily and James ate supper standing up, planning and speculating aloud between forkfuls of pie. Remus watched them with vicarious happiness and his own wistfulness. Afterward, while Lily telephoned her mother and James tried to make her laugh by making inappropriate hand gestures, Remus went to the Leaky Cauldron alone.

He knew he would have to do it soon. He knew he would have to say the thing that he did not want to say, that he couldn't stay with them, that he was now not only dangerous but superfluous. He sat at the bar and drank dark beer served in a festive Christmas pint glass with little Santa Clauses etched into the sides. He thought of the little girl at the party whose mother had tried to spare her the disappointment of finding out there was no Father Christmas. So angry! And so unusual, with that lavender hair.

He heard the scrape of a stool being pulled back next to him and his gaze jumped up.

"Thought I might find you here," said Lily, settling onto the tall, rickety stool next to Remus. Tom the barman leaned over to take her order – pumpkin juice, neat.

"You were having a moment. I didn't want to intrude," said Remus.

She rolled her eyes. "You were there when this started. You probably overheard the conception. Don't see why you're embarrassed now."

"I'm not embarrassed. I'm giving you space," he said.

"Well, stop being noble and come home. It's your turn at Scrabble."

She sipped her drink, and he sipped his.

"James said you had flown before," he said. He couldn't say it yet. Not yet.

"Yeah. I used to fly off of the swings on the playground when I was a girl. That's how I found out I was a witch."

"Your parents knew?"

"Well, no. Somebody saw me. A wizard. But anyway. Come home."

He set down his pint carefully, mopping up the dripping condensation with a napkin. He cleared his throat.

"Lily. Living with you has been – beyond lovely. But you are not going to want me around when you have a baby in the house."

"Yes I am," she said, plunking her glass down a little harder than she meant to do.

He shook his head slowly. "Think about what you are saying. Beyond the danger that I pose to all three of you at the full moon, there remains the fact that you will be a young family with a small child. You'll want your own home. You don't need your bachelor friend hanging around at the periphery, coming in the door at all hours of the night, waking the baby. I'll still be working for the Order, and who knows what I'll have to do. It could be dangerous. I could be tailed by Death Eaters, or worse. You won't want that around the house."

Her lip wobbled. He could tell that it was ripping her apart to admit that he might have a point. You had to give her credit; she held on to friendships even when they became inconvenient for her. She had even been friends with Severus Snape for a while, he recalled with a jolt.

"Look, I'm not leaving because I'm so terribly meek that I can't stand the idea of inconveniencing you. I'm leaving because I care about you, both of you, and this is what's best for you. You know it is. And I'll visit. Whenever you like. I'm not going to disappear," he said.

He took another sip. She folded and unfolded her napkin several times, thinking.

"Why did you ask me to live with you in the first place, anyway?" he asked.

She frowned. "I missed you. After we left school. I never saw you anymore. We were drifting apart. And you seemed lonely."

Had he? He cast his mind back over the last year and a half, as though he were flipping through a stack of postcards from himself. The one-room basement flat. The solitary Order missions. The gloomy summer. She might have a point, he thought. He had never lived alone until they left school. Maybe he _had_ been lonely. Had it really been that noticeable?

"I was lonely, too," she continued. "I mean, I love James, obviously, but you know how he is with Sirius. They're _best friends_. Sometimes they don't realize they're off in their own world. And, don't take this wrongly, because I adore them both, but they are purebloods. They were born into wealth. There are certain things I deal with that they can never understand. You understand, though."

He sighed. "Because I'm a werewolf."

"No, because you're a middle-class half-blood."

His eyebrows jerked upward in surprise. "Oh."

Well, this was interesting, to be categorized this way instead of that other one. Was that really how she saw him? Not as someone of a separate species, not an outcast, but as someone like herself?

He gazed at her dark red hair and pink cheeks and the pale constellation of freckles across her face. The cursed wound on her forehead had been dabbed with Stopper in Death and was healing rapidly.

His heart skipped a beat.

They had flirted for ages, largely in jest, but there had been a soupçon of truth in it. ("Met any nice witches yet?" "Only you, Mrs. Potter.") He did love her a little differently than he would have loved a sister. It wasn't some world-ending, soul-crushing thing, and he would never say it aloud, but sitting here, for the first time, he let himself feel it. As she stared back at him, those intense green eyes pressing into his, he suddenly understood with perfect certainty that she knew, too, that she had known long before he did, and that there was even a microscopic particle of regret on her part. Not enough to change their fate, not enough to change the fact that they both loved James more than they could possibly say, but a little one.

 _Alea iacta est._ The die was cast. Too late now. Or never meant to be at all.

Before he could finish that thought, she leaned forward and kissed him right between his eyes. This was neither the jokingly passionate kiss of that first morning when she crawled into his bed nor the friendly peck that had followed after. This was something else entirely, and the subtext was clear: _I see you. I know you. I love you._ She was absolving him of the sin of having fallen a little in love with her.

For a moment, his senses were flooded with her perfume. Or maybe it was just her natural smell. The funny thing was, the notes were not what he had smelled in the cauldron of _Amortentia_ that Professor Slughorn had shown their class in fifth year – not coffee and lavender and satsumas – but they were nice. Flowers. Treacle tart. Interesting.

He blinked, and it was over. She dug around in her pockets and then counted out a fistful of sickles and knuts onto the bar.

"Come home. Just for a little while. We need to sort out logistics," she said.

She smiled gamely. She had this small regret, and others besides, but she was happy. The world was darkening, and she had already been hurt – by Voldemort and Death Eaters and, in a way, her own sister – but she was happy. And if Lily could be happy in spite of everything, so could Remus. No more moping. No more drifting apart from his friends. No more floating through life, buffeted by whatever tragedies and accidents happened to him, reactive and passive. It was time to be present in his own life, and to accept whatever came next with resilience. To be a Marauder again, even though the Marauders' Map was long gone, probably shredded up by Argus Filch's mangy cat.

Remus finished his drink and stood up. "Alright. Did you use the Floo?"

"Yeah. Not supposed to _Apparate_ anymore. Don't want to splinch any future Quidditch players for England," she said.

She tapped her stomach. He smiled at her.

"After you," he said, when they had reached the sooty precipice at the edge of the fireplace.

He watched her turn through the verdant flames, her arms spread wide. Open to her future, whatever it might contain. He followed a minute later.

...

James wrinkled his long nose and stuck out his lower lip. He looked twelve years old again when he pouted like that.

"Look, Moony. I'm stuck with this place for another two years," he said, waving his hand at the tiled walls of the kitchen, which were bathed in blue dusk light. "Binding magical contract. Huge pain to get out of. And I ought to do something with my parents' place; it's just sitting there. I knew at some point I would have to go and deal with the estate. Maybe this is what I was waiting for."

Lily carefully laid down her Scrabble letters and then took a second helping of pie. She had three letters left, and Remus could tell from her expression that she planned to win.

"I'm not following," said Remus.

"You stay here," said James. "We're moving to my parents' old place in Godric's Hollow."

Lily did not look surprised. They must have discussed it when Remus had left for the pub.

"No, James – " Remus began.

" _Please._ I'm not doing you a favor. You're doing one for me. Stay here and take care of things. We might be back; I don't know. This is all – " he grinned at his wife – "this is all a lot sooner than I was expecting. I guess we're making it up as we go along now."

Remus squinted at him for a long time. James squinted back, his eyes slightly magnified through his glasses, wearing the expression of someone who had just made an unimpeachable argument. Sometimes, there was just no disagreeing with James.

"Alright," Remus said at last. "Alright, I will stay and take care of things until such time as you come back or your lease ends."

"Thank you. We'll start packing tomorrow. And there you go," said James, putting down all seven of his letters, extending _expel_ into _Expelliarmus_. "I win."

"Pfft. That's not a word," said Lily.

"Yes it is," said James. "It _is_ a word. The best kind of word. A _magic_ word."

James crossed his arms, grinning, pleased with himself. Lily made another noise of disapproval. He blew a raspberry at her.

"Oh, stuff it, Potter," she said. "Remus? We need a neutral, third-party opinion. Does Expelliarmus count in Scrabble?"

Remus shook his head. "Merlin, no. Are you insane? I wouldn't dare take sides between you two. You'll have to fight it out yourselves."

Lily groaned her displeasure. James laughed. Remus smiled. Lily smacked both of them on the arms and called them names until it was time to go to bed. 

In some odd, indefinable, and possibly ironic or foolish way, everything felt _right_ for a while.

Remus loved them both, and always would.


	7. Au Revoir, Mon Loup-Garou

A week later, on Christmas Day, the Potters had moved their things into the house in Godric's Hollow, and all that remained to do was fetch the cat and say goodbye. Remus stood with them on the balcony while James fussed over their two brooms. Lily held her snub-nosed cat in her arms. With her dark blue traveling cloak and wavy red hair, she looked like a Renaissance painting – the Madonna of the Very Ugly Cat.

He'd had time to think about that chaste kiss in the Leaky Cauldron, and about alternatives in general. What if he weren't a werewolf, what if Sirius was desperately in love with James, what if there wasn't a spy among them at all. There were a million versions of this story that might be funnier, or happier. But this was how it was. And it was not so bad. He had four friends who he loved like family, and the Order needed him. How could he regret any of it? How could he mope? He probably had been a little depressed until he moved in with the Potters, but their love – for each other, and for him – had changed him. If he ever did make a go of things with a girlfriend (and it was extremely unlikely, he thought, but all the same) he would try to remember things he had learned from watching them. To apologize. To roll with the punches. To love in the face of terror. But even if he lived out his days a bachelor, he could try to find peace and beauty and humor in it.

Remus could not join them for Christmas dinner at the new house, even though Sirius and Peter would be there, because it was full moon again. Two months had passed since they began their bohemian living experiment. Now, in a way, things were back to normal.

Remus watched them rise into the air, Lily's hair and the hinge of James' glasses catching the afternoon sun. They looked scared, and brave, and beautiful. They looked like angels, if angels could know fear or argue about board games.

Remus waved until the Potters were just a pair of distant, dark specks in the winter sky. Then he dropped his hands to his sides and listened to the sounds of the street – car exhausts purring, pigeons warbling. He thought of that party – the not-party – and of Lily dancing with Sirius in her goose-like way, and of James flying up to the roof.

Maybe _I'm_ Wendy, he thought. Maybe I'm the one who darns socks while the rest of them fly away to new adventures.

But no, that wasn't so. There would be many more Order missions for him, and whether he wanted to see them as adventures or ordeals was a matter of perspective. And he would see his two friends again soon. He would watch them raise that baby in a world they had fought to make better. He would help them, if he could.

Resolved not to mope, he set the security wards and locked the locks and turned off the lights. He perched on a high-backed leather chair in the study, waiting for moonrise, and reading.

It was not so terrible to be alone. There was a kind of beauty in it. Right?

This was a beautiful place. The dark curves of the piano, the bright walls in the morning sun, the cheerful blue and white tiles in the kitchen. Too big and too fancy for one solo werewolf, but it wasn't really his. He was just keeping it warm for them. For Lily and James. Should they ever choose to return. Two years was a long time. Anything could happen.

The clock on the wall chimed each hour as it passed. After dark but before moonrise, Remus heard the stereo spring to life in the sitting room. Somebody was playing his records.

 _Oh I could drink a case of you, and I would still be on my feet_ – SCRATCH.

A grunt, a clatter, the whip of a needle across vinyl –

 _Sunday morning and I'm falling_ – SCRATCH.

Remus opened the study door. Sirius was stooped over the stereo, back turned, his dark hair spilling across his shoulders. The silver studs on his leather jacket had attracted the fairies' attention.

"I hate your music, Moony," said Sirius, tossing records haphazardly across the room like a niffler in search of shiny objects.

"Hello to you, too, Padfoot," said Remus, dusting off the sleeve of _The Velvet Underground & Nico_. "How did you get in?"

"I have a key," said Sirius. "I always have had."

"You never dropped by before."

"Yeah. Well. I felt like doing it now. Got a problem with that?"

"No."

"God, all of your music is so damned depressing. Lily could've at least left you some Judas Priest for when company comes."

He moved the needle through the tracks, sampling them like a sommelier at a winery, vetoing each one with a snort or a roll of his eyes. The bright, zingy guitars of "Big Yellow Taxi" started up.

_Don't it always seem to go_

_that you don't know what you've got_

_til it's gone._

"I think this might be the most upbeat thing in here, and it's bleeding Joni Mitchell," said Sirius.

"Why are you playing it, then?"

"Because I need a new dance partner. Prongs went and impregnated my last one. Tosser." Sirius' half-smile betrayed him. He was madly happy for James, no question.

"I'm flattered that you thought of me first," said Remus, neatening the stack of records he had picked up off the floor.

"Well, I considered Pete, but he's too short, and he's still hanging around eating turkey at the new house. He hasn't taken the hint that he's supposed to leave yet. They're _nesting_."

Remus set down the records and straightened the wool blanket that had been folded over the back of the sofa. Something about this room was not right without at least three people in it. The furniture was too big, somehow.

"Stop dusting and get over here," said Sirius, jerking an elbow at him.

"Alright, but keep your hands where I can see them. I know how you get after you've had good food and firewhiskey," said Remus.

Sirius took Remus' hand and made to twirl him around.

"Are you leading?" asked Remus. "We can't both lead."

"I'm used to Lily. She flops around a lot. You lead, then."

"A werewolf leading the heir to the House of Black? I don't think so."

Sirius scowled. "Oh, forget it. God, you're horrible. You're the worst person I've ever met."

Remus gave him an amused smile. That was as good as a declaration of undying love from Sirius. Oh, Sirius, who had risked injury and expulsion to become an Animagus illegally, just so that Remus would not be alone at the full moon. Sirius, who was missing James and Lily as much as Remus was. They listened to the music for a while, both lost in thought. Sirius actually tolerated several songs in their entirety. The be-ribboned golden bells winked from the ceiling.

"Moony, what are we going to do? Our Prongs is all grown up."

"Oh, I'm sure we can find plenty to do with ourselves. There is a major international ideological conflict happening all around us, for instance."

"I meant for _fun_ , Moony."

"Hmm. You know, Gideon and Fabian Prewitt are fairly amusing chaps. Maybe we should start hanging around with them. See how they feel about a pub crawl on New Year's Eve."

"Yeah, I s'pose. Could do."

"Or we could borrow some knitting patterns from Dumbledore. Make some leg warmers. Endless potential for fun there."

"Or maybe I'll just climb into your bed tomorrow and pretend to have enjoyed a night of passion."

"I wouldn't put it past you."

Sirius selected another record, grimaced at it, and then danced in a circle, elegant, effortlessly cool.

"I apologize, Sirius, but you know the moon will be up in twenty minutes."

"I know. I came to be with you."

"You did?"

"Yes."

Remus sat down on the sofa, already feeling the pull of the moon, the change in gravity, the hastening of his blood.

"First chance I get, I'm going to spoil that baby," said Sirius.

"You mean you'll wait til she's of age, take her out drinking, and tell her horrible stories about her parents. And then flirt with her," said Remus.

"Nah, I'd never. I like older women. What you really want, Moony, is thirty-something women with emotional baggage and no shame. Amazing birds. Under-appreciated. Bet the baby's a boy, anyway. I definitely will tell him horrible stories about his parents, though."

"Hmm. Like the one about how they set all the curtains in our dormitory on fire."

"Or the one about Filch catching them naked on the Astronomy tower."

"Or the one about the lemon trifle that got spiked with Veritaserum at their wedding. Lily's poor parents got an earful. But you said some very sweet things under the influence, as I recall."

"Yeah. Well. I was telling the truth. I _do_ love them. Damn it, I already miss them."

"As do I."

Sirius smirked his beautiful smirk. Then he turned into Padfoot and chased a couple of fairies around the room, snapping at them playfully with his jaws.


End file.
